HealthDay News -- There is a correlation between a reduction in state-level opioid overdose mortality rates and state-level cannabis laws, according to researchers.

“Because chronic pain is a major indication for medical cannabis, laws that establish access to medical cannabis may change overdose mortality related to opioid analgesics in states that have enacted them,” wrote Marcus A Bachhuber, MD, of the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues in JAMA Internal Medicine.

In an effort to examine the correlation between the presence of state medical cannabis laws and opioid analgesic overdose mortality, the investigators performed a time-series analysis of medical cannabis laws and state-level death certificate data from 1999 to 2010 in all 50 states.

Compared with states without medical cannabis laws, states with laws had a 24.8% lower mean annual opioid overdose mortality rate (P=0.003). In each year after implementation, these laws correlated with a lower rate of overdose mortality that generally strengthened over time (Table 1).

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